Hermione Takes the Initiative
by JLawrence Kenny
Summary: What if the night of Ron's successful Quidditch debut, things went a little differently in the spare classroom? One-shot, unless you readers would like more.


Greeting everyone in Internet-land. For those of you who are familiar with my other fanfic, I'm immensely busy with school at the moment, as well as writing my actual book that could potentially make me actual money, so it's on temporary hiatus. I promise that it is not abandoned, and I will probably squeak out another chapter for you over Spring Break, which happens to be next week for me. I also refuse to waster an entire chapter on a mere A/N, so I'm just putting it here in the hopes that people check my profile.

That being said, this little scene occurred to me as one of those "how things could have been if Harry and Hermione didn't get lovesick in Half-Blood Prince" events, and I had to get it out of my head. I'll not take up any more of your time until the end, so enjoy this drabble from my twisted psyche.

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**Hermione Takes the Initiative**

Harry darted forward, sidestepped Romilda Vane again, and pushed open the portrait of the Fat Lady. The corridor outside seemed to be deserted.

"Hermione?"

"Hermione." He found her in the first unlocked classroom he tried. She was sitting on the teacher's desk, alone except for a small ring of twittering yellow birds circling her head, which she had clearly just conjured out of midair. Harry could not help admiring her spell-work at a time like this.

"Oh, hello, Harry," she said in a brittle voice. "I was just practicing." "Yeah . . . they're — er — really good. ..." said Harry.

He had no idea what to say to her. He was just wondering whether there was any chance that she had not noticed Ron, that she had merely left the room because the party was a little too rowdy, when she said, "Ron seems to be enjoying the celebrations." "Er . . . does he?" said Harry.

"Don't pretend you didn't see him," said Hermione. "He wasn't exactly hiding it, was — ." The door behind them burst open. To Harry's horror, Ron came in, laughing, pulling Lavender by the hand. ; ' "Oh," he said, drawing up short at the sight of Harry and Hermione.

"Oops!" said Lavender, and she backed out of the room, giggling. The door swung shut behind her.

There was a horrible, swelling, billowing silence. Hermione was staring at Ron, who refused to look at her, but said with an odd mixture of bravado and awkwardness, "Hi, Harry! Wondered where you'd got to!"

Hermione slid off the desk. The little flock of golden birds dissipated as she strode quickly up to Harry and yanked on his tie, bringing them face to face. Before he could so much as stutter or register what was happening, Hermione had wrapped her hand around the back of his neck and kissed him. Not just a chaste kiss either, but a kiss with full lip contact.

To say Harry was stunned was an understatement, but oddly enough, he found he rather enjoyed the sensation of Hermione's lips on his. Confused though he was, Harry returned Hermione's action until the sound of Ron sputtering loudly brought him to his senses. He pulled away somewhat reluctantly and looked at a slowly reddening Ron Weasley.

His stuttering was nigh incomprehensible, and Hermione cut him off with a curt, "You shouldn't leave Lavender waiting outside. She'll wonder where you've gone." Grabbing Harry's wrist, she strode past Ron and out the door. Harry glanced at Ron as he was dragged away, who looked completely flabbergasted and unable to move.

Once out in the hallway, Hermione continued to drag Harry along to the next door down, who was still trying to make sense of what had just happened. "Harry?" Harry looked at Hermione, who suddenly seemed a lot less confident than she had mere seconds ago. "I'm sorry about what just happened."

"What exactly _did _just happen Hermione?"

Shifting uncomfortably, she replied, "Well, I think it's pretty obvious that I sort of… used you to make Ron feel like a jerk. And now I feel horrible for having kissed you in a way that made it seem like my only intention was to make Ron jealous."

Harry's heart dropped as Hermione talked, thinking that the new emotion he had just felt was a complete waste, but one word in the sentence stood out to him with a glimmer of optimism. "Only?" he asked.

"Well, I would be lying if I said I didn't have feelings for you, Harry." Hermione looked at him with sparkling eyes. "I've had feelings for both you and Ron, but he proved tonight that he's not nearly mature enough to warrant my emotions. You should thank him for helping me realize that. That is…" She suddenly became shy, though her eyes continued to look hopeful. "…assuming that the emotions are reciprocated?"

Harry stared into Hermione's chocolate-brown eyes, trying to sort out his own emotions. "Well, I'm sure you've noticed by now, but I seem to have developed feelings for Ginny over the past year." The effect on Hermione was instantaneous, with her eyes dropping to the floor as she began to mutter a reply. The touch of Harry's finger on her lips silenced her, and she looked back up at him. "But I'd be lying if I said I didn't have feeling for you either, Hermione." Her face lit up at Harry's declaration. "Just because I have feelings for someone else doesn't mean I should ignore someone else, especially someone that's so special to me."

Hermione's grin could have lit up the room. She nodded, then said, "Would you like to try our first kiss again?"

Rather than reply, Harry decided to show his agreement by leaning down and capturing her lips in his. It was softer than their initial kiss, but as Hermione wrapped her arms around Harry's body and drew herself closer, he felt the intensity far outweigh the previous one. It was not an overly passionate kiss, nor particularly long, but as the new couple broke contact, it held the promise of many more kisses to come. "Better than Ron?"

Hermione giggled, remembering Ron's disgusting display of kissing. "Much, much better." Both grinning idiotically, they grasped hands, making their way back to the party, knowing that even with Voldemort on the horizon, there was one thing they could look forward to; each other.

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As was mentioned in the summary, this is officially a one-shot unless I get positive reviews that want more. So if you do want more, REVIEW! And if you don't, REVIEW ANYWAY, because Merlin know my ego could use the boost. ^_^


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